❤ Oppo A57: Features you need to know from a $200 smartphone

Oppo makes the best budget smartphones that possess great specs. This means great displays, battery and fingerprint scanners. This is what the $200 Oppo A57 is.

Hardware, hardware and more great hardware

These great hardware includes an octa core Snapdragon 435 processor, 3GB RAM, 32GB storage and a 2,900mAh battery. We have seen cheaper phones with more powerful processors, so the Oppo A57 does feel overpriced. However, performance for most tasks is zippy and you will not see issues with basic games like Subway Surfers. We did notice that the processor tends to heat up when taxed — this includes using the front camera for more than 5 minutes at a stretch. Battery life is one of the big issues we have with the phone — even though it is a 2,900mAh battery, the phone struggles to last a full day.

Looks that Dazzle

You get a full metal unibody construction and fingerprint scanner on the front home button. Kept side by side, the Oppo A57 looks exactly like a compact Oppo F1s. It has a 5.2-inch HD display while the Oppo F1s has a 5.5-inch HD display. The fingerprint scanner is one of the best in this price bracket — 10 out of 10 times it unlocked the phone immediately.

Front Camera takes Center Stage

The front camera on the A57 is a 16MP unit with f 2.0 aperture and it is capable of recording full HD video. The image quality is fantastic — images have good details and rich colours in daylight with zero noise. In low light, noise, the old smartphone camera enemy, comes up again. The images are still usable though — good enough for social media needs. There is also the option to enable screen flash for low light (the screen briefly brightens up to create more light). Overall, the A57 has one of the best front cameras in this price range.